Whom Dog Hath Joined Read Online Free Page B

aren’t
going to make us shut down the Harvest Festival, are you?” she asked. “Because
that would be a nightmare.”
    “No ma’am,” Rick said. “If there was a crime committed here
it was a long time ago, and as long as we can keep people away from the
building we should be fine.”
    “But they can still get into the kitchen, right? We make
money from the food.”
    “Yes, they can.” He put his hand on her arm. “We’ll do our
best not to disrupt things.”
    She thanked him and walked away. “You were awfully nice to
her,” I said, as Rick led the way into the Meeting House.
    “The mayor’s a Quaker, if you’ve forgotten. Plus I feel
sorry for her. This Festival is a big deal, and it’s not her fault your dog dug
up an old corpse.”
    I snorted but followed him inside. The main room was as I
remembered it, with a central aisle and rows of ancient wooden pews parallel to
each of the four walls. Severe, in a colonial America kind of way, plain and
spare. Since their worship involved silent waiting for God with no ritual,
there was no need for an altar, as you’d find in a synagogue or a church. Older
members could sit on raised benches along the far wall, allowing them to be
seen and heard.
    I didn’t think I’d make a very good Quaker. I didn’t have
the patience for stillness, too much going on in my brain. Rochester and I were
alike that way, always curious about the world and eager to snoop around.
    At the center of the space was a short table where someone –
the clerk, for example – could stand to address the Meeting. Rick led me
between the pews to a single door set into the back wall. Before he stepped
through, he handed me a pair of the blue gloves. “I’d tell you not to touch
anything, but I know you.”
    I didn’t bother to complain. Rick was right; I was a nosy
guy, a lot like my dog.
    I put the gloves on and followed him, feeling like we were a
couple of weird Star Trek aliens with bright blue hands. We stepped
gingerly into a warren of small offices and storage rooms. Red and black wires
looped down from the ceiling beside the bent frames of aluminum studs and holes
knocked through drywall. The smell of sawdust hung in the air.
    A locked metal tool cabinet, dinged and banged from hard
use, stood to one side, beside a pile of buckets and hoses. Rick turned right
and stopped in front of the open door to a storage closet. “This is as close as
we can get to where the body is.” He held up his hand and we listened. We could
hear the buzz of the crowd outside, under the blare of the jazz band.
     “It’s tight in there. I managed to get the ladder set up
but it’s pretty rickety.”
    He turned on his flashlight and stepped inside, and I
followed. He stuck the flashlight between his shoulder and his neck, gripped
the ladder, and started to climb.
    I stood behind him, holding the ladder steady. He pushed up
on the access panel, but it didn’t move. “Is it screwed shut?” I asked.
    “No, just stuck.” He pulled a screwdriver from his belt and
inserted it between the edge of the panel and the ceiling, and applied
pressure. “Come on, you mother,” he grunted.
    Suddenly the panel gave way, and Rick nearly toppled
backwards. I had to head-butt his ass to keep him up there. I grabbed his flashlight
before it hit the floor.
    He uttered a few curse words that would have gotten us a
long detention back at Pennsbury High, and then managed to get the panel
flipped up on its hinge. He stepped up higher on the ladder, which creaked
ominously, and poked his head over the edge. “Light,” he said, and I handed the
flashlight up to him.
    He looked down. “Tight fit in here,” he said. “But I can see
a skull, and a jumble of bones and fragments of what look like dusty old clothes.
There’s an old ladder in there, too, I guess for climbing down the other side. Whoever
it is must have died in there, because I don’t see any other way in besides
this panel. Crime scene will tell me if any